The entire Singapore is talking about the earthquake in Sichuan. Donation efforts are in overdrive and there’s even a self-importantly titled Sichuan Earthquake Charity Show broadcasted on TV last Sunday. More than 100 celebs banded together to raise funds for the victims of the earthquake. To show how solemn their efforts were, they wore jeans and plain t-shirts with the logo of the show emblazed on them.

Errm, doesn’t it cost money to make these tees? Money that could have contributed to the S$9.5 million that the show raised. And this amount was raised from only from one SIngaporean source after sponsors Novena Holdings, Scorpio East and Unusual Productions scrapped plans for their individual fund-raising concerts to work with MediaCorp for a bigger, more successful show. Even Superman would be impressed by the lightning speed in which the show was put together since the quake occured on May 12.

That’s not all. Singapore celebs like JJ Lin has written a special song called ‘Love and Hope’ in memory of the quake; Project Superstar runner-up Kelly Poon “plans to make stops along the way to offer monetary contributions or other forms of relief if her schedule permits” while trying to get the rest of China to buy her albums on a promo tour; Kym Ng and Nick Shen say they wanna go to China to help. But I don’t think they have any medic training. Maybe comic relief is a form of aid.

Meanwhile, we have been strangely silent about the crisis in Burma. No Singapore celeb has spoken of a desire to go there or even wrote a SMS poem to commerate the victims of Cyclone Nargis. (Okay, i don’t actually know about the SMS bit). No mega TV show has been organised to raise funds. True, the Burmese government is the sick man of Asia and they don’t want foreign aid and help. But the scale of recognition and fund-raising for Burma is truly pathetic compared to the gushing comments and funds flowing out for China.

Let’s see: The Red Cross put the death toll in Burma to be as high as 128,000. Over in China, 68, 977 people have died. The math is pretty obvious. Why the difference?!

Is it because Singapore is a predominantly Chinese society that’s why we subconsciously tend to feel more for the Chinese victims? My friend says that emotions are enthno-centric. Just three weeks ago, we griped about idiotic Chinese waiters who can’t understand our orders, careless Chinese cyclists who treated the roads of Singapore as if they were back in the village as well as unhygienic Chinese hotelites who gave our dorms a uniquely unbearable scent. Now, we’re over-flowing with friendship and fellowship with these same people. It’s kinda disturbing.

My dad is a regular at a coffeeshop where there are a few Chinese workers serving drinks and food. I was there when he asked them about how they felt about the Sichuan quake. They shrugged and laughed, “Dunno, my province not there. Sichuan very far from where I stay,” and asked my Dad if he wanted his usual bottle of Calsberg. That’s right. They’ve effectively learnt the Singaporean work ethics: “NOT MY PA- SAH (business).” I was shocked! These are born and bred Chinese who don’t seem to give two hoots about the disaster in their homeland, while I parted with my measley $5 in the vain hopes that some sad, starving, injured kid I saw on Channel News Asia would receive food and aid. Maybe these Chinese workers don’t have TV at home.

The answer could also be purely economic. China is after all the world’s largest economy. Singapore has lots of business dealings and investment there. The Chinese government will probably think back fondly about JJ Lin’s song and Fann Wong’s pleas for donations when awarding contracts. Why do you think Sharon Stone was dropped by beauty company Christian Dior as its spokesperson in China after she made those remarks about the earthquake being “bad karma?” Dior can’t afford 1.3 billion people rejecting Dior Addict Ultra Gloss. The travesty!

Seriously, she just made it worse by retracting and apologising. The Chinese people won’t forgive her, anyway. She might as well have kept her loyalty to her friend, the Dalai Lama. And her knowledge of world affairs is appalling. She described China’s treatment of Tibet as “unkind.” “Unkind” is kinda of general, don’t you think. Snatching a kid’s toy is unkind. Somebody should take lessons from Angelina Jolie.

For a refreshing change from celebutards, there’s always

Ellen Page says “Hitler is alive in Burma” referring to Than Shwe, the military dictator of Burma and goes on to list his crimes such as “ethnic cleansing, labour camps, torture and systematic rape.” She’s part of a 30-day campaign for Burma: It Can’t Wait featuring a different celeb every day. As worthy as the campaign may be, it probably won’t yield any concrete results apart from awareness. Like another friend says, it’s not as if the world isn’t aware of Burma’s situation. Since Burma isn’t harbouring any terrorists or has a stategic access to crude oil or nuclear weapons like North Korea, no one’s going threaten it, much lest change the regime.

For my part, I went to the Burmese embassy website in Singapore. I tried submitting a query about an English translation for the embassy statement on donations for the cyclone. Yes, the very friendly people who work in the embassy put up a statement that’s entirely in Burmese. After I hit submit, the page suddenly refreshed – without a “sent” or “submitted” notification. It’s as if my query never existed. It disappeared into thin air. Burma might as well be the Bermuda Triangle of Asia. It’s the Black Hole. Everyone tries to pretend what’s happening there doesn’t exist.